Can a baseball team have an identity in the way a football team has an identity?
 

Football teams clearly have identities. The 1985 Bears. The 1986 Giants. The 1989 Niners. The 2000 Ravens. The Greatest Show on Turf. The Tom Brady Patriots. Any championship Steelers team. In terms of identity, you just know from watching them.

There are many who say that a baseball team is less of a team and more of a collection of individual efforts that happen to result in a victory for a group of individuals that wear the same uniform.

So can a baseball team have an identity? Aside from the 1986 Mets (the most iconic baseball team in history, in my totally biased opinion), I am hard pressed to think of a team in recent memory that had an identity that defined them. The identity of the 1986 Mets were that they were a direct, brash, play hard, party hard, team. Aside from Gary Carter, you didn't know if any given player was sober on the field...but they would still kick ass on some combination of desire, talent and grit. That's an identity.

Let's take the 2023 Texas Rangers. What is their identity?

Or how about any other World Series winner in the past 20 years? Aside from having a bunch of good individual players, what characteristics united them?

The 96 Yankees were an iconic team. This was the beginning of the fabled Core Four and will probably be one of the most important Yankees teams assembled in terms of what it meant to the future of the franchise.

The Marlins championship teams are probably infamous for their examples of excess.

People really loved those 70s A's and Reds teams and the We Are Family Pirates.

A few that come to mind quickly:

77-78 Yankees - Billy, Reggie, Thurman, Guidry.....fist fights in the dugout, etc., etc., etc..

"We Are Family" era Pirates (oddly, kind of the opposite of the Yanks of that time period)

69 Mets.....who by the way paired great with the 1968-69 Jets on the football side.

1962 Mets.....for the wrong reasons obviously

1927 Yankees

Bash Brothers era Athletics

Billy Martin era Athletics - even if they didn't actually win anything. Was there ever a more reckless manager and playing style melded into one team, than this one?

I think in baseball, the identity is formed in the playoffs. Only for a select special teams does their identity form through the entire season, or across multiple years. Many teams don't gain national recognition until the playoffs when their games are televised coast to coast.

In recent memory, the 90s Braves would be "Hardluck." The late 90s NYY, as Packs said, is the greatest dynasty of my lifetime. The 2002 Angels had the Rally Monkey. The 2003 Marlins were the daycare babies, under the tutelage of the ancient Jack McKeon. So many players on that team were so young: Miguel Cabrera and Josh Beckett are the best examples. The 2011 Cardinals were never say die (best WS I've ever seen...until the Reds win their next one).

The Big Red Machine, The Bronx Zoo, The Runnin' Redbirds, The Impossible Dream and Curse Breaking "Idiot" Red Sox, and the Amazin' Mets all spring to mind.

Murderers Row, Gashouse Gang.

And don't forget the Cheatin' Astros.

I feel as if the 90’s Braves team were thought of as a pitching team. Unfortunately also known as a playoff losing team.

Some of the great Astroturf teams of the 80's definitely featured speed as their calling card. The Cardinals and Royals both won multiple pennants and each captured a World Series that decade by running the opposition off the field.